Debate: Should you be using weight machines?

If you think that toying with weight machines is the gym equivalent of driving a car with L-plates glued to the bumper, you’re misinformed, champ. There is more than one reason why machines are a fixture in the workout regimes of professional bodybuilders and Olympic champions, and missguided gym snobbery could be denying you access to powerful tools that can help you build cyborg strength.

Even before you consider the unique muscle-building capacities of weight machines, think about another valuable commodity: time. While the dudebro hordes clang metal in the weights room, machines often stand by unused. From now on, consider them your very own private workout facilities.

Rise of the machines

Instead of wrestling with weight plates after each set, machines allow you to switch loads with the simple tweak of a lever so you can power through workouts. You don’t need to wait around for a spotter, and you’ll never waste time completing a Poirot-esque investigation into the mystery of the missing 16kg dumbbell.

In physiological terms, machines are excellent for forging Superman strength and size. You will always move more weight on a leg press machine than you can squat with a barbell. That’s because free weights require your muscles to multitask. But on a machine, those extra challenges – balance, coordination, proprioception – are removed.

Working along a fixed plane, you can push your muscles as hard as possible and crank through fatigue without fear of your form derailing and crashing your system. For that reason, machines are a great way to overload your muscles with those short sets of maximal effort that will trigger the muscle hypertrophy you crave.

Run like clockwork

If your goals are more aesthetic, machines make it easy to assemble your ideal physique. Bodybuilders use machine biceps curls, calf raises and triceps extensions to target specific muscles they want to pump up. Remember that muscles don’t know if you are using a machine or a free weight, and any resistance training will trigger a hormonal response which enhances muscle growth. Muscles simply respond to force and tension. So the heavier you lift, the bigger they will grow.

Machines are much more versatile than that peeling old instructions sticker suggests, too. On a leg-press machine you can do double-leg presses, switch to single-leg presses, move your feet wider to work your glutes, move them narrower to hit your quads or even do straight-leg calf raises. And the fixed, safe movement patterns of machines makes them perfect for eccentric training: lowering the weight slowly for 10 seconds on each rep adds extra tension, which will spark muscle growth.

Elite Olympic athletes even use machines for power training – like leg-press throws when they allow the plate to release 2-3in off their feet – but these are advanced techniques best done with the help of a trainer in order to avoid risking dismantling your pistons and ending up on YouTube.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should throw free weights out the window, (note: never throw free weights out the window). All the scientific literature shows that free weights are a superior tool for general training. Athletic performance involves three-dimensional movements and without the balance and coordination developed by free weights, you’d be useless in any sport.

But machines should be a vital component of your weekly workout routine, and embracing them could be the smartest upgrade you make in 2016. Machines are built to make our lives better and easier, so why not let them?

Three reasons to hit the machines today

- Hit the bench-press machine for pure strength gains: the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research revealed that subjects who trained on a bench machine had a three-rep max 8% higher than those who used free weights.

- The barbell squat is the king of exercises, but a 2014 study showed machine leg presses also elevate levels of muscle-building testosterone and growth hormone.

- Fixed weights are the safest way to perform slow, eccentric training (3 x 8 reps at 60% 1RM, lowering for 10sec per rep). The American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism proved this cranks up protein synthesis for extra muscle growth.

By Mark Bailey, photography by Jobe Lawrenson. Satan’s helper Duncan French is a strength and conditioning coach at the English Institute of Sport. His knowledge can turn you into a medal-winning machine.

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